Two deaths have been confirmed so far in Boulder County — one in Boulder and one in Jamestown — and authorities said they expected the death toll to rise.

Authorities did not release the name of the man killed by flooding on Linden Drive, but friends said they believed the victim was Wesley Quinlan, a recent graduate of Centaurus High School. His Facebook page had numerous messages of condolence.

Sheriff's Cmdr. Heidi Prentup said the man was driving with a woman and their car got stuck early Thursday.

"She got out, and the water swept her away," Prentup said.

The young man in the car got out to try to rescue her, but he was swept away, too, Prentup said. The woman is still missing.

The U.S. Geological Survey said creek flows in Boulder had reached what experts call a 100-year flood level. Authorities said water was spilling over the top of 12 dams in the county.

At Rosewood Avenue and Broadway, Four Mile Creek jumped its banks and flooded a storage facility, washing guitars, papers and other belongings into the street.

Frantic residents tried to rescue their property, but floodwaters pushed their cars and they were evacuated. One unoccupied car sat submerged in the floodwaters.

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Some residents built makeshift barricades to hold back floodwaters, while others grabbed shovels to fill sandbags.

Vincente Castro, who lives in a mobile home near the creek, said he heard a lot of wind and really strong rain.

"Someone from the fire department told everyone to leave. The water was pushing the cars around," he said.

"I have no words. I can't believe it," he said. "I've lived here 14 years and have never seen this."

The National Weather Service said Boulder has already seen between 9 and 12 inches of rain — a record amount for one day — and heavy rain continued to fall. Forecasters said it is by far the rainiest September ever for Boulder.

More than two dozen road closures were reported. The airport was also closed to allow authorities to fly in supplies. Emergency officials asked for helicopters from the National Guard.

Boulder's city manager issued a local disaster and emergency declaration, and officials issued mandatory evacuation orders in some areas.

Kitty Kintz, fearing for her safety inside her home near the mouth of Boulder Canyon, headed to the Boulder YMCA where she struggled to stay calm.

"The rain is supposed to keep going. We can't control it. We just have to respect Mother Nature," she said.

Sheriff Joe Pelle asked residents to avoid driving to school or work in an effort to keep area roads open for emergency vehicles.

Pelle said that while waters may recede in some areas, the flooding has left debris on the roadways.

"It may look OK in your neighborhood, but by the time you get on the thoroughfare to work, you may run into some real issues," Pelle said. "We've got cars in water and debris and manholes missing their covers literally everywhere in the county."

A firefighter stranded in a tree overnight in Lefthand Canyon overnight was able to escape, the sheriff's department said. The firefighter suffered serious injuries.

Tiernan Doyle and Nancy Pettingill noticed water seeping into the basement of their home near 16th and Kalima Avenue about 11:30 p.m. and immediately grabbed a pick ax and a shovel and started digging a trench.

"We were lucky," Pettingill said, noting that some of her neighbors' homes were flooded and still others lost their properties. On Thursday morning they ventured out toward Iris Fields, where water had formed a fast-moving moat around the park.

"But we may go back and it might not be there," she said.

Kim Price, who walked her dogs nearby, said she started mitigating her home near 16th and Lombardi a while ago, fearing the worst. Though she said Thursday's storms were worse than what she ever imagined.

Efforts that included the installment of French drains, and her digging of a three-foot ditch around her home last week, helped keep water damage to a minimum, she said.

"But every one of my neighbors has a flooded basement," Price said, watching a stream of brown muck tear down Iris Avenue. Neighbors with shovels worked in vain to keep it away from their homes.

"It's scary," she said. "You don't want to think of someone taking an innertube out on a day like this."

Tim McGuire, a graduate student at the University of Colorado, woke up to a quarter-inch of mud in his bathroom and brown silt running through a hallway. His home faces Iris Avenue, which had turned into a rushing river of thick, brown rainwater and debris.

"I didn't think it rained here," said McGuire, who moved from Virginia. "I was kind of hoping classes would be canceled and it turned out they were."

He and his roommate, Bridgette Moore, spent Thursday morning sorting out their losses.

"There's a lot of stuff that will need to be replaced but I don't think it's as bad as how a lot of people had it," he said. They planned to spend the day cleaning. "Hopefully someone is still delivering some food because we're out."

On the University of Colorado campus, the bad weather began peaking at 6 p.m. on Wednesday and got so bad that Chancellor Phil DiStefano issued an order closing campus at 1 a.m. Thursday.

About 40 buildings — about 25 percent of the buildings on campus — have suffered some type of flood damage, university officials said.

Early Thursday morning, about 350 graduate students, faculty and staff who live in the university's Family Housing Complex were evacuated and moved further away from Boulder Creek.

Another 13 undergraduates who live in basement areas in Reed and Crossman Halls were evacuated. It was expected that those students wouldn't be able to return to their rooms for a couple of weeks.

School spokesman Bronson Hilliard said classes would be canceled both Thursday and Friday.

"It's pretty intense," Hilliard said. "It's hard to describe...the streets look like lakes where the water is pooling up."

Teams of inspectors were moving from building to building around campus assessing damage, most of which was being found in basements and the lower levels of buildings.

The CU football team was expected to move practice from its normal location to Kittridge Field, which is normally used for intramural activities.

In Broomfield, three vehicles plunged into the rushing waters of Rock Creek after a section of Dillon Road early Thursday. Firefighters rescued two people, including one man trapped in his overturned car.

"It was a great feeling, it was a great team effort," said Lt. Rob Williams of a North Metro Fire & Rescue crew.

Lockheed says object part of 'sensor technology' testing that ended ThursdayWhat the heck is that thing? It's fair to assume that question was on the minds of many people who traveled along Colo. 128 south of Boulder this week if they happened to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be a large, silver projectile perched alongside the highway and pointed north toward town.

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